43: Passes attempted by Rancho Buena Vista in 2007, when the Longhorns were Division I runners-up.

Helicopters from nearby North Island Naval Air Station constantly fly past the antiquated Mar Vista High football field in Imperial Beach. But if the military sincerely wants to supply a metaphor for the Mariners’ preferred method of attack, tanks should rumble up and down Elm Avenue.

This team travels by ground. A relentless, wave-after-wave assault of running plays designed to chew up yards, the clock and numb the opponent’s will.

Going into Friday’s game at San Ysidro, the Mariners had snapped the ball 255 times on offense; 249 were running plays. In three games, Mar Vista didn’t attempt a pass.

Balanced, the Mariners are not. Very good, they are.

The trend continued as Mar Vista handed host San Ysidro a 49-7 defeat. The Mariners compiled 402 yards rushing on 38 attempts and improved to 7-1.

And in the passing department? Mar Vista went 0-for-3.

“As a quarterback, Don Coryell is probably rolling over in his grave,” said San Ysidro coach Tyler Arciaga. “But what they’re doing is successful. It works for them. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And their kids have bought into the program. They’ve put their heart and soul into it.”

In an age of spread offenses and 40 passes a game, the Mariners are a throwback. (A runback?) They operate out of the Double Wing. Seven linemen stand toe-to-toe with no space between them. Wingbacks line up at 45-degree angles outside the tight ends and the fullback hunches down so close to the quarterback that critics of the attack call it “The Butt Sniffer.”

The Mariners call it “The B Train.”

“ ’Cause the whole train’s coming at you,” said wingback Jimmie Hill.

Mar Vista head coach Brian Hay implemented the offense three years ago. Like any good football coach, he didn’t invent the Double Wing. He copied it. Hay was coaching at Banning High in the mid-1990s and faced Riverside’s Bloomington High, which ran the attack.

Hay coached at Hilltop High from 2001 to 2004 and it was nothing for the Lancers to throw the ball 40 times a game. But at Mar Vista, he was missing that certain something to travel by air — a quarterback.

Said Hay, “We realized we had these street-tough-type kids that would like to punch you in the mouth as much as anything.”

Bye-bye finesse, hello 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Make that 9.3 yards per carry, the Mariners’ season average.

Hill, a sophomore, leads the team with 881 yards rushing, averaging 9.6 per carry.

At a school where the short orange goal posts hark back to leather helmets, where the track is dirt and the field lumpy and bare in spots, the Mariners love their old-school attack.